Flying Chalks
Flying Chalks is a Singapore-based start-up company. Their primary service lies in providing an integrated platform to enhance the overseas experiences of tertiary students worldwide.
Flying Chalks seeks to help students connect with local and International Friends, plan their overseas trips, and share advice and experiences. Users have to first create an account either through Facebook or directly on the platform. The platform provides university guides with country- and university-specific information curated by the Flying Chalks team. It also contains user-generated content such as university reviews, travel stories, and tips for overseas students. In addition, Flying Chalks has a Facebook feed featuring stories of students who are currently on or have completed their studies abroad in the Humans of New York style.
The company monetizes by working with relevant service providers and companies/institutions interested in paying to engage their student community. They work with corporate partners such as insurance agencies, events platforms and telecom companies to provide discounts for students. They are also featured in foreign embassies, local and overseas universities as well as other platforms such as Skyscanner, allowing them to reach out to students who are travelling overseas for their university education or exchange programmes.
History
Flying Chalks was founded by Melvin Lee, a graduate from Singapore Management University, in May 2015. It was awarded incubation at the Singapore Management University's Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in November 2015.
Flying Chalks launched their Minimum Viable Product on 5 January 2016. They went on establish partnerships with student clubs, universities and embassies, as well as expanded their platform by including more content and introducing new features. Following the upgrade, users can use the live chat function to interact with one another more easily. Within 6 months from the official launch, Flying Chalks’ community grew to 2,000 students from more than 50 universities worldwide.
Flying Chalks received the i.JAM Reload Tier 1 Grant under Expara IDM Ventures in March 2016. In July, the team took part in the Startup Alley at the Expo for Property, Investing & Crowdfunding (EPIC) organised by CoAssets, where they presented the company and their product.
To date, the platform has gathered more than 5,000 international users.
Achievements
Flying Chalks was one of 78 start-ups to be invited to Korea for the K-Startup Grand Challenge 2016 by the Korean government. A total of 2,439 companies across 124 countries applied.
They emerged first runner up and received $15,000 in cash funding at the P.A.K. Entrepreneurs’ Challenge 2016, a competition that seeks to identify and support teams with the most executable and validated business ideas.
In 2015, Flying Chalks emerged as the finalist at the SICC-SMU Eureka Prize, a competition organised by the Singapore Management University to encourage students to come up with innovative and commercially feasible ideas.
Melvin was awarded the Promising SME 500 Youth Entrepreneur Award in 2016 for his founding role in Flying Chalks.